Alabama State University students rally at State House to restore funding

Alabama State University students visit the Alabama State House for a rally and to talk to legislators on March 6, 2014 in Montgomery, Ala. (Mike Cason/mcason@al.com)

MONTGOMERY, Alabama --- Alabama State University students came by busloads today to lobby the Legislature to restore $10 million that was cut from the university’s state appropriation.

“We need to engage our legislators to make them understand why a cut like this not only impacts the university, most importantly the students, but it also impacts the state,” said Danielle Kennedy, vice president for university relations.

ASU students lined up to get into the State House, where the House of Representatives and Senate are working on the education budget for next year.

ASU's state appropriation for this year is $41.6 million. The budget for 2015 passed by the Senate called for $31.6 million, a 25 percent cut. It made another $10 million for ASU conditional on approval of the governor.

Sen. Trip Pittman, the Senate budget chairman, said he thought ASU's new president, Gwendolyn Boyd, could use the conditional money as leverage to make changes after a preliminary report from a forensic audit last year indicated misspending and waste. ASU disputed that report and sued the auditing firm.

After Boyd objected to Pittman's idea, the senator said he supported restoring the $10 million.

"Let's let them know we have no fear and we will fight for our institution," Boyd told the crowd at today's rally.

Updated at 12:02 p.m. to add quote from Gwendolyn Boyd. The Associated Press contributed to this report.